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{{globalize|date=April 2016|2 = the United States of America}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2013}}
'''Waterboarding'''
|url=https://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/04/05/open-letter-attorney-general-alberto-gonzales
|title=Open Letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
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|accessdate=2009-04-17}}</ref>
In the most common method of waterboarding, the captive's face is covered with cloth or some other thin material, and the subject is immobilized laying on
|first=William
|last=Safire
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|publisher=Rutgers University Press
|year=2007
|quote=The U.S. government has, since 9/11, repeatedly sought to redefine torture so as to exclude acts once accepted as torture, such as the CIA's use of a waterboarding technique.
|isbn=978-0-8135-4061-0}}</ref> US government officials at various times said they did not believe waterboarding to be a form of torture.<ref name="The New Tricky Dick">{{cite news
|last=Beam
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}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/2014/01/07/260155065/cia-lawyer-waterboarding-wasnt-torture-then-and-isnt-torture-now|title=CIA Lawyer: Waterboarding Wasn't Torture Then And Isn't Torture Now|first=John|last=Rizzo|publisher=}}</ref>
In 2006, the Bush administration banned
|first = Fred
|last = Lucas
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In December 2014, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued a declassified 500 page summary of its still classified [[Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture|6,700 page report]] on the [[Central Intelligence Agency|Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)]] Detention and Interrogation Program. The report concluded that "the CIA's use of [[Enhanced Interrogation Techniques|enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT)]] was not effective for acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees." According to the report, the CIA had presented no credible proof that information obtained through waterboarding or the other harsh interrogation methods that the CIA employed prevented any attacks or saved any lives. There was no evidence that information obtained from the detainees through EIT was not or could not have been obtained through conventional interrogation methods.<ref name="ssci-report">{{Cite report |author=Senate Select Committee on Intelligence |date=3 Dec 2014 |title=Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program |url=https://publicintelligence.net/senate-cia-torture-report/|publisher=United States Senate |page=|docket= |accessdate=28 Nov 2015 |quote= }}</ref>
In June 2015, in response to a critical assessment of China in the U.S. State Department's annual human rights report, China
==Etymology==
While the
{{Quote|In the case of [[Khalid Shaikh Mohammed]], a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as 'water boarding', in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown.<!--DO ''not'' ALTER THE PUNCTUATION OR SPELLING OF THIS DIRECT QUOTE.--><ref name=Safire/><ref name=Risen>{{cite news
|first=James
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|date=April 2009}}</ref> }}
Historically in the West,
|title=Waterboarding: An Issue Before Mukasey's Bid
|date=3 November 2007
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|accessdate=17 April 2009}}</ref> In the videos, each correspondent is held against a board by the "interrogators".
[[Christopher Hitchens]] voluntarily subjected himself to a filmed demonstration of waterboarding in 2008, an experience which he recounted in [[Vanity Fair (magazine)|''Vanity Fair'']].<ref name=hitchvanity2008>[[Christopher Hitchens|Hitchens, Christopher]] (August 2008) [http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens200808 Believe Me, It’s Torture] ''Vanity Fair''</ref> He was bound on a horizontal board with a black mask over his face. A group of men said to be highly trained in this tactic, who demanded anonymity, carried out the
==Mental and physical effects==
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In an open letter in 2007 to [[U.S. Attorney General]] [[Alberto Gonzales]], [[Human Rights Watch]] asserted that waterboarding can cause the sort of "severe pain" prohibited by 18 [[U.S. code|USC]] 2340 (the implementation in the United States of the [[United Nations Convention Against Torture]]), that the psychological effects can last long after waterboarding ends (another of the criteria under 18 USC 2340), and that uninterrupted waterboarding can ultimately cause death.<ref name="HRW open letter WB"/>
==
Waterboarding is considered to be torture by
|first = Benjamin
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On 23 February 2008, the Justice Department revealed that its internal ethics office was investigating the department's legal approval for waterboarding of al Qaeda suspects by the CIA and was likely to make public an unclassified version of its report.<ref name="titleWaterboarding Focus of Inquiry by Justice Dept. - New York Times">{{cite news |first=Scott |last=Shane |date=23 February 2008 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/washington/23justice.html |title=Waterboarding Focus of Inquiry by Justice Dept. |accessdate=20 April 2009 |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref>
On 15 October 2008, it was reported that the Bush administration had issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in June 2003 and June 2004 explicitly endorsing waterboarding and other torture techniques against al-Qaeda suspects.<ref name="WP10152008">{{cite news |work=[[The Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/14/AR2008101403331.html |title=CIA Tactics Endorsed in Secret Memos |first=Joby |last=Warrick |date=15 October 2008 |accessdate=20 April 2009}}</ref> The memos were granted only after "repeated requests" from the CIA, who at the time were worried that the White House would eventually try to distance themselves from the issue. Field employees in the agency believed they could easily be blamed for using the techniques without proper written permission or authority.<ref name="WP10152008" /> Until this point, the Bush administration had never been concretely tied to acknowledging the
In December 2008, [[Robert Mueller]], the Director of the FBI since 5 July 2001, had said that despite Bush Administration claims that waterboarding has "disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks", he does not believe that evidence obtained by the U.S. government through [[enhanced interrogation techniques]] such as waterboarding disrupted one attack.<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/12/11/BL2007121101053.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns Did torture Work?] ''[[The Washington Post]]'' 11 December 2007</ref><ref>David Rose (16 December 2008) [http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2008/12/torture200812?currentPage=4 "Reckoning"] ''Vanity Fair''. Retrieved 7 June 2009.</ref>
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In an interview in January 2009, [[Dick Cheney]] acknowledged the use of waterboarding to interrogate suspects and said that waterboarding had been "used with great discrimination by people who know what they're doing and has produced a lot of valuable information and intelligence".<ref name=riechmann20090108>{{cite news |first=Deb |last=Riechmann |date=8 January 2009 |title=Cheney: CIA did nothing illegal in interrogations |url=http://origin.foxnews.com/wires/2009Jan08/0,4670,CheneyInterview,00.html |publisher=[[Fox News Channel]] |accessdate=21 April 2009}}</ref>
On 1 July 2009, the Obama administration announced that it was delaying the scheduled release of declassified portions of a report by the CIA Inspector General in response to a civil lawsuit. The CIA report reportedly cast doubt on the effectiveness of the
====Abu Zubaydah====
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==Effectiveness==
Waterboarding
===For eliciting confessions===
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Shortly before the end of Bush's second term, news media in other countries were opining that under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, the U.S. is obligated to hold those responsible to account under [[criminal law]].<ref name=horton20090119>{{cite news |first=Scott |last=Horton |authorlink=Scott Horton (lawyer) |date=19 January 2009 |title=Overseas, Expectations Build for Torture Prosecutions |url=http://harpers.org/archive/2009/01/hbc-90004233 |work=[[Harper's Magazine]] |accessdate=21 April 2009}}</ref><ref name=kaleck20090119>{{cite news |first=Wolfgang |last=Kaleck |authorlink=Wolfgang Kaleck |date=19 January 2009 |title=Die leere Anklagebank |url=http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/491/455168/text/ |work=[[Süddeutsche Zeitung]] |language=German |accessdate=21 April 2009}}</ref>
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment– [[Manfred Nowak]]– on 20 January 2009, remarked on German television that, following the inauguration of [[Barack Obama]] as new President, George W. Bush has lost his [[head of state immunity]] and under international law, the U.S. is now mandated to start [[criminal proceedings]] against all those involved in violations of the UN Convention Against Torture.<ref name=marinero20090121>{{cite news |first=Ximena |last=Marinero |date=21 January 2009 |title=UN torture investigator calls on Obama to charge Bush for Guantanamo abuses |url=http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2009/01/un-torture-investigator-calls-on-obama.php |work=[[JURIST]] |accessdate=21 April 2009 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090502015654/http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2009/01/un-torture-investigator-calls-on-obama.php |archivedate=2 May 2009 |df=dmy-all }}</ref><ref name=horton20090121>{{cite news |first=Scott |last=Horton |authorlink=Scott Horton (lawyer) |date=21 January 2009 |title=UN Rapporteur: Initiate criminal proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld now |url=http://harpers.org/archive/2009/01/hbc-90004250 |work=[[Harper's Magazine]] |accessdate=21 April 2009}}</ref> Law professor [[Dietmar Herz]] explained
===United States law===
The [[United States Supreme Court]] in [[Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain]], said that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights "does not of its own force impose obligations as a matter of international law."<ref>[[Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain]], {{ussc|542|692|2004}}.</ref> However, the United States has a historical record of regarding the use of the most brutal waterboarding techniques as a war crime, and has prosecuted individuals for such practice in the past.
In 1947, during the [[Yokohama War Crimes Trials]], the United States prosecuted a Japanese civilian who had served in World War II as an interpreter for the Japanese military, Yukio Asano, for "Violation of the [[laws of war|Laws and Customs of War]]", asserting that he "did unlawfully take and convert to his own use [[Red Cross parcel|Red Cross packages and supplies]] intended for" prisoners, but, far worse, that he also "did willfully and unlawfully mistreat and torture" prisoners of war. The charges against Asano included "beating using hands, fists, club; kicking; water torture; burning using cigarettes; strapping on a stretcher head downward."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~warcrime/Japan/Yokohama/Reviews/Yokohama_Review_Asano.htm |title=Yukio Asano |work=Case Synopses from Judge Advocate's Reviews: Yokohama Class B and C War Crimes Trials |publisher=UC Berkeley War Crimes Studies Center |year=2007 |accessdate=21 April 2009 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090426063407/http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~warcrime/Japan/Yokohama/Reviews/Yokohama_Review_Asano.htm |archivedate=26 April 2009 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> The specifications in the charges with regard to "water torture" consisted of "pouring water up [the] nostrils" of one prisoner, "forcing water into [the] mouths and noses" of two other prisoners, and "forcing water into [the] nose" of a fourth prisoner.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.2008electionprocon.org/pdf/asano_case.pdf |title=Retrieved 14 May 2009. |format=PDF |accessdate=2009-10-21 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140405090817/http://www.2008electionprocon.org/pdf/asano_case.pdf |archivedate=5 April 2014 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> Asano received a sentence of 15 years of [[hard labor]].<ref name=walter20061005/>
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